Featured Red Sea Wreck – The Stanier 8F

This is not actually a shipwreck. These are two LMS Stanier 8F Locomotive engines that are associated with the better, well known wreck of the Thistlegorm.

The Stanier 8F locomotive engines are more formally known as London Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway 8F class 2-8-0′s. There were 852 of these locomotives built between 1935 and 1946 as a freight version based on William Stanier’s design known as the Black Five.

When the Thistlegorm was bombed and sunk on 06 October 1941, the ship sank in 30-32 meters of water. Either the force of the bombs which sank the ship exploding, or as a result of the sinking itself, the two locomotives became detached from the ship and landed upright on the seabed on either side of the ship. The coal cars and water carriers remained attached the ship.